Tell President Obama to veto the DARK Act

As you may have heard, the Senate voted last week to approve the Roberts-Stabenow version of the DARK Act. The next step is that it goes back to the House (since it’s different from the version the House approved last summer) and then on to President Obama.

This bill would be more accurately termed an UNlabeling bill. It has huge loopholes, no enforcement mechanisms, and a two-year delay before anything happens – except that it immediately overrides state laws that are already in place.

This is not a “compromise” on labeling – it is effectively a ban on GMO labeling, in disguise.

We expect the House to vote this week. Given that the earlier version of the DARK Act passed by a large margin, and that the House sponsor has said he’ll support the Senate version, it will almost certainly pass the House.

The bill could be on the President’s desk before the end of this week.

A presidential veto is our last chance to stop the DARK Act. Please take action today!

Note: if you look up S. 764, the bill number, you’ll see that it was originally about defunding Planned Parenthood. But all of the original text has been removed, and replaced by an amendment inserting the DARK Act provisions. This bill has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood anymore. The text, as passed by the Senate, is available at https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/764/text

TAKE ACTION: Contact President Obama

You can contact President Obama in three ways: phone call, email, or signing an online petition on the White House’s website. Remember that phone calls are the most effective, and take just a couple of minutes!

I urge President Obama to veto S. 764, the DARK Act, which pre-empts state laws on labeling.

This bill is riddled with loopholes. Worst yet, by allowing companies to use QR codes instead of words on the package, it creates barriers for every person who wants to find out information about what they’re eating – and it discriminates against low income families, minorities, and seniors, all of whom are unlikely to have smartphones and/or the comfort level to use them to scan QR codes.

Less than half of all low income Americans can afford a smartphone. And only 21% of Americans surveyed have scanned QR codes. But everyone has to eat, and all Americans should know what they’re buying.

President Obama, stand by your campaign promise that people deserve the right to know what’s in their food, and veto this terrible bill.